Wednesday, June 12, 2013

NOT-SO-GREAT SOCIETY: Fatherlessness in America

LBJ's "Great Society" represented a massive redistribution of wealth that built a permanent culture of dependency in America. And one of its senseless and tragic consequences was the dramatic rise of the single-parent family.

Sixty percent of kids in Richmond, Virginia, are without a dad in the home, reports First Things First of Greater Richmond... First Things First works to help men become actively involved in their children’s lives in Richmond, Virginia, because, as the group explains, often “it’s the fathers that leave the family.… [W]e have a major father absenteeism issue in Richmond.”

Across the nation, over one-quarter of all children live in single-parent households. Most of these children live with their mothers.

...When children do not have stable relationships with their dads, marked by frequent involvement, they are more susceptible to depression and are more likely to abuse drugs, or demonstrate delinquent behavior.

Children who live in single-parent households are also 82 percent more likely to experience child poverty.

With the unmarried birth rate high among young women with the lowest levels of education, single-mother households now comprise more than half of all families living in poverty. Without the relative financial stability marriage can provide, single parents and their children are at greater risk of government dependence. Of the roughly $1 trillion spent on welfare funding to low-income families with children, almost three-quarters went to single-parent—and often fatherless—households.

When fathers play an active role in the lives of their children, they make a tangible difference. Children whose fathers spent time with them doing day-to-day activities such as homework, eating dinner, or playing sports earned better grades on average than peers who had less access to their fathers.

If you want the true, shocking story behind the Democrats' "War on Poverty" then click here, but make sure you're sitting down first.